Manal and Alaa's bit bucket free speech from the bletches

early morning sunday the 15th of April 2007 state security arrested Egyptian blogger Abdol Monem Mahmoud, Monem was on the run for two days after receiving news of special forces breaking into his home in Alexandria and intimidating his parents. he has been detained for 15 days under temporary custody while the prosecutor investigates his case, in practice the prosecutor is likely to renew his custody for weeks if not months without facing trial.

Monem is a member of the Muslim brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group. he is the editor of their English Language website http://www.ikhwanweb.com . while there is a large scale crack down on the brotherhood at the moment with many of rank and leadership in jail , some facing military tribunals we believe that Monem was arrested mainly in reaction to his online activity. prior to his arrest Monem was coordinating a campaign against the arrests and military tribunals. he joined the Egyptian blogosphere's campaign against torture talking about his torture incident and participating in a variety of anti torture event including the launch of Amnesty International's latest report on Egypt.

Monem was among the first Muslim Brotherhood members to start a blog, he is the reason why many of them joined the Egyptian blogosphere, these blogs are allowing the younger generation in the brotherhood to have it's say and claim a stake in decision making within the group, for the first time in recent politically history we can see MB members debating, arguing and disagreeing over both points of ideology and specific political actions. they've used their blogs to criticize their own leadership and members of parliament just as much as they used them to criticize the government. and perhaps most importantly now that the Egyptian blogosphere is more representative of all the political and ideological spectrum it has become a space where we can learn more about and from each other and where we can find more common ground and work together in our common quest for freedom and democracy in Egypt.

When I got arrested back in May 2006, thousands of people across the globe joined in an international campaign of solidarity asking for my release. I'm forever grateful to every single person who participated in that campaign, while it did not actually result in my immediate release it ensured I wasn't tortured or maltreated in prison and it helped the cause of freedom and democracy in Egypt by bringing it to the attention of millions through blogs and main stream media.

and today I ask you to show the same solidarity for my friend and fellow blogger Abdol Monem Mahmoud. while we blong to different political ideologies we shared the same vision and in fact Monem did more for the cause of democracy in Egypt that I would ever hope to achieve.

Links

• Monem's English blog
• Monem's Arabic blog
• Free Monem campaign blog (arabic)
• statement by Reporters Without Borders
• statement by Committee to Protect Journalists
• statement by Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
• statement by El Nadim Center's statement
• Global Voices post on Monem's arrest
• Associated Press
• Abu aardvark
• tomgara
• my occuied territory